Altering the Status Quo in the Taiwan Strait

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “status quo” as “the existing state of affairs.”

US Secretary of Defense James Mattis knows what it means.

The former general said this past June that “we oppose all unilateral efforts to alter the ‘status quo’ [in the Taiwan Strait] and will continue to insist any resolution of differences accord with the wishes of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

China has been changing the ‘status quo’ in the Taiwan Strait over the past decades and Taiwan has not.

How did China change the status quo? A handful of examples:

It enacted its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he promulgated the “Chinese Dream.” Xi identified the annexation of Taiwan as a major component of this, saying that any attempts at “separatism” would face “the punishment of history.” He hinted that China must take control of Taiwan by 2050.

China has conducted numerous long-range military live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait; sent bombers flying over major waterways around Taiwan; dispatched warships that trespassed into Taiwan’s territorial waters; and in January 2018 unilaterally launched a new aviation corridor over the Taiwan Strait.

On the diplomatic front, China this year poached two of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — the Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso within in month.

On May 30, former American Institute in Taiwan chairman Richard Bush said that he would like to see “a very senior official in the United States […]say to its counterpart in China: ‘We are not trying to change the status quo. Taiwan is not trying to change the status quo. You are trying to change the status quo.’”

Bush is of course right. The time is now for US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mattis and other US officials to read the Chinese the riot act when it comes to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.